ticket stubs in your diary
by sarsaparillia
Summary: Blood, guts, and angel cake. — Senshi/Shittenou; AKA the Goddamn Rich People AU.
1. electra goes to war

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to Mars.  
**notes**: this is the start of the** goddamn rich people** au. whaddup.  
**notes2**: yes it's another series of oneshots what do you want from me _I can't help it do you understand_

**title**: electra goes to war  
**summary**: I'd rather be his whore than your wife. — Kaidou/Rei/Jadeite; AU.

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Rei came home early.

Her apartment smelled like vanilla cigars and shitty Chinese takeout. Mina had been there, maybe with Serena on her arm, maybe not—but the six pairs of new heels stuffed in the closet told Rei everything she needed to know. It was the third time that week.

She sighed.

"You can come out now, Mina," Rei said. "I know you're there."

"We're in here, Rei," Serena's voice floated to the entrance hall from the direction of her bedroom. "We've got cake! And vodka!"

"If you get it on my bed, I am going to hurt you," Rei called back, good-natured, strangely happy. She kicked her pumps off, left them behind without putting them neatly away like she did every other day, and she couldn't even bring herself to care.

"If you're implying that I'm a mess, Hino—"

"You _are_ a mess, Serena," Rei said as she walked through her bedroom door, following the trail of expensive clothes that Mina left everywhere she went.

She hung there for a minute, clinging to the door frame, and just sort of looked at her friends. They were all there—Mina and Serena lounging on the bed, Amy curled on a pinstriped chaise, Lita's long athlete's limbs sprawled out in the window seat. The ashtray on the night table was still smoking thinly.

"Only a little!" Serena said. There was frosting on her lower lip. She licked it away, and stared almost pleadingly at Rei. "A little!"

"Or a lot. Why are you all here, again?"

"Because you—" Mina flipped the long golden sheet of her hair over her shoulder with a haughty little shake of her head, "—have that thing tonight. And you are totally not getting out of it. We're all going!"

"My father's going to be there," Rei said. She busied herself with stripping off her work clothes. She slung her purse to the floor, peeled off her stockings, unhooked her skirt, and ignored her friends entirely. She needed to unwind, and though she loved her friends dearly, they were not conducive to _chilling out_.

(Ironic, really, because she was always the one who wanted to start the fires.)

"Your father is _always_ at these things."

"More reason to avoid them," Rei said stiffly.

"Rei, I know you have—I know there are things. Things that he did that weren't, y'know, kosher," Amy said quietly, so quietly, gentle out of the corner of her mouth. "I know that. But you… sometimes you look so _lonely_."

"And he sent you another dress," Mina sang. "We brought it up 'cause the doorman wouldn't!"

Rei's shirt dropped from nerveless fingers.

It had almost become a routine. The dress would be laid out in a box—always the same, thick lovely cream-coloured cardboard with her name emblazoned in gold, where did he _find_ these things. Rei would open it, slide a thin sharp knife along the seams to pull the top off and she would stare down disdainfully at whatever it was that her father thought she would appreciate that week.

And then she'd set it alight in the kitchen sink.

She normally sent the ashes back in the box, wrapped in a red ribbon. There was a fierce satisfaction to the motion.

He still hadn't gotten to her, yet.

This was different, because two dumb blondes (and Lita and Amy, who deserved a mention despite being neither blonde nor dumb) were loafing around her apartment, taking up all her space and chattering like lunatics. They were dumb and fluffy with their heads full of stars—airheads chasing butterflies, the both of them.

But Mina's eyes were a shade colder than they ought to have been, and Serena's smile trembled just a little. Lita sat with her head thrown back, the afternoon sun sunk deep into her hair. Amy just looked at Rei for a long, long time.

They would stand behind her, for this.

Rei's heart contracted with a sudden wave of affection for the four of them.

"He probably won't even be there, you know," Serena said.

"What?"

"Your father. He, y'know, he usually doesn't come to these things. I know. I've looked! So it could be totally speculation! You should come. Please?" Serena clasped her hands together, and pulled the most horrific sad-kitten-eyes pout-face that Rei had ever seen.

They were so ridiculous.

The sigh that escaped Rei was from deep in her chest; full-body and resigned, she was. The world coloured up melancholy pink, to be her burning resentment. Serena perked up.

"Rei?" she asked, blue eyes wide and hopeful.

"Fine," Rei huffed. "_Fine_. Gods, fine, _be_ like that. I'll go."

Mina jumped up from the bed punching the air, violent in her joy. Rei could almost taste the girl's victory—_only Mina_, she thought. But behind Mina's thick layer of dumb blonde was another layer, an old, ancient sentiment that ran deep along all their bones:

_We're still here_.

Rei reached for the dress box.

—

It was, of course, the stupidest thing Rei had let he friends talk her into since the _last_ time they'd talked her into one of these parties.

That time, at least, Serena had just gotten engaged. Rei had been allowed to drink herself into fucking _oblivion_ without having to interact with her father at all, and it had been great. If only.

(And though she would never admit it, but that night, Rei had let herself hate Serena's fiancé. She let herself hate his perfect hair and his perfect medical degree and the perfect way he looked at Serena like he'd found his salvation in the long golden length of her friend's hair. Rei let herself hate him, but only for one night because she knew that in another life Darien had probably been prince to Serena's princess. Whatever. She didn't think about it when she was sober, and that was probably for the best.)

"Do I have to," Rei said, and it wasn't a question.

"If I have to, so do you," Amy replied patiently. She wore a floaty periwinkle dress that fell softly around her thighs for all its modest neckline.

"I can't believe Serena _ditched_ us," huffed Mina. Rei watched her check her lipstick in a glittery gold compact, before she snapped it closed and tossed her hair over her shoulder in a lemon-yellow wave of silk down her back. People had mistaken Serena and Mina for twins for as long as Rei could remember. Her heart hurt. "How does Darien even get _invited_ to these things?"

"He talked Serena into marrying him," Lita sighed.

"That was _coercion_! He—he _corrupted_ her! Into _marriage_! She _never_ should have said yes, and, like, this is coming from the Goddes of Love, that dude is _so_ bad news—!"

"Give it up, Mina," Amy patted Mina's arm consolingly. "You're not winning this one."

Mina opened her mouth to say something else (or, more likely, to continue ranting about her deep-seated dislike of Darien Shields). But just then, Serena bounced back towards them, cheeks flushed.

"Rei, Rei, don't—there's—"

"Breathe, stupid," Rei said easily.

Serena pushed her curled bangs out of her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Don't freak out, okay? Your father's here, I'm sorry, I didn't think—!"

"Can I go be sick?"

"Rei!"

"No, really, can I be voluntarily sick?" Rei asked flatly. Her gaze burned along the other occupants of the room: the shady dealers there to smooch politician ass, the drug lords, the hospital owners, the CEOs, and there, horror of all horrors, was her father.

With Kaidou was at his side.

Rei's hatred was suddenly a tangible thing, sick-sweet on her tongue.

Serena, fingers curled in the crook of her elbow, held on a little tighter. "He won't—Rei, he won't come here, I won't let him, I promise I won't—"

"It's okay, 'Ren. Not your fault," Rei murmured. The old nickname calmed Serena some, but there was nothing that Rei could do to wipe away the anguish on her best friend's face. Serena was going to be blaming herself for weeks.

Rei straightened her shoulders.

The only thing she could do was face it head on.

She'd been a primadonna, in her time: she was beautiful and smart and graceful, raised by a sickly mother then a credit card when her mother passed away because her father didn't have the time to deal with a little girl. And okay, whatever, it was what it was.

Rei could have the world wrapped around her finger, as long as she wanted it.

So she set her shoulders back, forced herself not to muss up whatever it was that Mina had done to her hair, and went to smile at her father.

Senator Takashi Hino was not a large man by any stretch of the imagination: in her bright red pumps, Rei was a full three inches taller than her father. She looked down at him, and did not swell with pride. That was common, and she was _anything_ but that.

"Hello, Father," she said without moving her lips. She did not smile.

"Hello, Rei. It has been a long time," her father said. He didn't smile either, but then, Rei didn't expect him to. She had no memories of her father smiling. Even in the wedding photos, he didn't smile.

"I'm sure you've been busy," Rei said. It came out thin, came out fake, but she wasn't about to put the effort in.

"Ah," he said. "Yes, we have. Kaidou and his wife—you remember Elise, yes?—have a daughter now."

Rei smiled like the shine of light off a bead, plastic-fake but with enough pizazz to get her through the night. "I remember," she said. "Raine, right? She's two now, isn't she?"

Kaidou's eyes flashed behind his glasses. "Yes," he said simply. "Raine."

"Congratulations," said Rei. Her mouth pulled into a smile, but it was a hollow thing, jagged and mean around the edges. It could have been an ugly expression, but she'd long honed her cruelty into something coloured red and deadly-sharp.

Because Rei Hino was cruel, and there were some things she was never going to forgive.

This was one of them.

"Oh, pardon me, I see Serena. Lovely to see you, Father," Rei said. Over her shoulder, she said "Thank you for the dress."

And she turned and left before he could say anything else.

Serena wasn't anywhere in sight.

—

There could not be enough alcohol in the world to satisfy Rei, tonight.

She'd downed three flutes of the champagne that was floating around the room on nearly-invisible waiters and grabbed two more. She scanned the room for her friends, and: Mina stood in a crowd of panting teenage boys laughing; Amy had cloistered herself up with the old codgers who played speed chess in the park; Lita was—where was Lita, anyway—and Serena—

Serena was standing by Darien with her arm tucked up in his, eyes shining.

Rei tried valiantly not to vomit into one of the palm shrubs in the corner.

She would have happily spent the night getting thoroughly trashed from that point onwards, because eventually the girls would find her and take her home; they'd put her to bed and hold her hands, just like they always did when one of them was out of sorts.

And it was fine, it was okay, she was going with it.

Until fingers closed around her wrist, and Rei Hino was presented with the man who broke her heart for the second time that evening.

And suddenly it was not fine. Suddenly it was not okay. Suddenly she was _not_ going with it.

Because Kaidou still stood tall and blond and, _ugh_, attractive, why was that even a thing? Why was he even allowed to be here, to be around her when he'd kissed her and then proceeded to gamely _get married to someone else_?

Why hadn't she fought _harder_?

Rei's eyes went cold as ice.

"Pardon _me_," she said.

Kaidou's grip didn't ease. "Rei," he said. "Please."

"Please," she repeated. The disbelief choked at her throat, because disbelief was easier than hurt. Disbelief led to rage, not hurt. "_Please_. Do you even know—no, of course you don't. Of _course_ you have no idea. Let go of me, Kaidou."

"You're drunk," he said.

"That's true. Does your _wife_ know where you are?" Rei asked, and watched a myriad of emotions flicker over his face. They were all ugly, and they all gave her an awful sense of satisfaction.

She thought _I will make you hurt. For everything you did, I will make you hurt_.

"She doesn't—Rei, it's not—"

"You have a daughter," Rei said. Her voice ripped through an octave, too high suddenly, raw with emotion. "You have a _daughter_! You always wanted to be like my father, Kaidou, so congratulations! You're going to be just like him, because you're making all the same mistakes, and I—ugh, whatever. Let go."

He let her go, finally. His eyes were shaded behind his glasses.

"What are you going to do? No one is ever going to love you," he said.

_Because you are hard and sharp and despite your beauty, Rei, you are not loveable_, he didn't say.

Like it was a certainty. Like it was inevitable. And she could hear it, hanging thick in the air between them like sour milk.

Rei wanted to scream.

She wanted her fire, her friends—she wanted peace and quiet and her apartment with the lights turned down low. She looked into his eyes and found nothing but cruelty, nothing but contempt, and she wondered how she'd ever really loved him.

(She hadn't.)

"You say that like someone doesn't already," Rei said.

Her gaze settled on Serena and Darien, and—and Darien's _friends_.

The dark sticky part of Rei's soul crowed in ugly delight. She'd ruin Jakob's night, one-up him while stabbing the heart out of her own cowardice. And maybe she'd stick it to Kaidou, too, crunching the heel of her too-high crimson stiletto down on what was left of his soul.

"Him?" Kaidou laughed quietly, more of a disbelieving chuckle than anything else. "Really, Rei, I thought you had better taste. He only has whores."

Rei smiled sweetly. "I'd rather be his whore than your wife. If you'll excuse me."

The click of her heels was loud against the muted babble of the people around her—it seemed that tonight she was digging in, getting back, hurting and tearing and finally, _finally_ saying what she needed to say. It was a sharp and clean-cut feeling, bright on the inside of her eyelids.

She didn't do peace, Rei. Not well, anyway, always too strung-out and angry and _hungry_ for peace to mean anything.

But revenge?

Revenge, she could do.

Jakob saw her coming. How could he not? He'd watched her all night, gaze prickling the back of her neck while she'd talked to her father and her ex-love, and now, now she could use that. His grin was lascivious, but his eyes were upset. Rei didn't know why, nor did she particularly care.

She thought of the two crows that lived in the tree just outside her apartment window, thought of the shiny things they hoarded along the bark; little bits of trash that were sparkly and pretty enough in the sunlight that it didn't matter that they were someone else's leftovers. When she woke up with the sun on her face, sometimes she would get the reflections on the walls, and it was nice.

Treasure was different for everyone, Rei thought.

"Rei! Are you—?" Serena reached for her.

"I'm okay, 'Ren," Rei said, but didn't spare her friend a glance. She kept her eyes on Jakob, pinned him down with her stare and kept him there until they were nose to nose. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Kiss me," she said, simple.

Like he could ever say no.

"I knew you'd come around," Jakob said. His eyes were very blue, but they weren't happy. They were never happy.

Rei had to wonder when she'd realized that.

"_Kiss_ me," she said again, more demanding now. His fingers curled around the sharp jut of her hip, and even through the white fabric she could feel the heat of his skin. It was a kindness, somehow burned away the lingering chill that Kaidou's fingerprints had left all over her soul.

"You don't even like me, Fireball," he snickered.

"Kiss me, Jakob, or I'll never talk to you again."

"You don't talk to me anyway," he said, but it, apparently, did the trick. He best down and… kissed her on the nose.

What an _asshole_.

Still, she had to smile wryly—this was Jakob, she ought to have expected something like this. He never did anything easily, not even kiss.

And Rei…

Well, Rei didn't do anything easily, either.

"I'm going home," she said. "You coming?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"One-time offer, Jakob," Rei said, and smiled with her teeth.

Everyone was staring at them. Rei couldn't quite bring herself to care, not now under the haze of too many glasses of champagne and her own absolute disgust with the world she'd been born into. The world she'd almost been _forced_ to stay in, Kaidou, damn him. Sometimes she thought back to that night, when he'd towered over her and kissed her on the lips. Rei had to physically restrain her gag reflex, wrap a hand around her throat to stop herself from upchucking.

She'd been so _blind_.

And now was the time to rectify that.

Only she didn't love Jakob, didn't even like him really—barely tolerated on a good day, loathed on a bad, but he was something. Someone. Someone different. Not Serena and her sad kitten eyes and ridiculous hairdo, not Mina and her sharp edges, not Lita, not Amy. He didn't look at her like somewhere along the line she lost pieces of herself.

(Though Rei would admit to looking at her friends exactly the same way. Mina was only ditzy when other people were around. Lita was never soft until they were alone. Amy did other things than read, but no one else was allowed to see that. Rei remembered long summer days when they were just little girls, playing pat-a-cake and skipping with gaudy plastic ropes like no one's business; before Mina started modeling and Amy's father left and Lita became an orphan with a trust fund bigger than most people's lottery wishes. Before any of that, they'd just been friends.)

Rei took her coat and her purse, and didn't look over her shoulder to see if he was following her out.

The night was muggy indigo blue turning violet soft, the street lit up neon green-white and pink from the billboards blaring nonstop out into the orange-lit streets. The pale heather grey of dawn was still hours away. Rei's world was only coloured at night and she pulled her hair out of Mina's upsweep to cascade around her like a shield.

"Where are you going?"

Rei looked over her shoulder at him.

Jakob stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, staring at her like she'd lost her head; of course he was ungraceful about it. Tousled golden hair, and those eyes—Rei knew want, but that was not what was in his gaze. He watched her like a hawk, but not like a hawk eyeing prey. He watched her like she was a panther, something that could kill him with a look.

"Subway," Rei said, not in the mood. She breathed easier, outside and away from the glitz and glam that her father had thrown at her since she'd been small. "I came with Serena."

"She's going home with Darien," he said, without a trace of irony.

Rei snorted. "Of course she is."

"You okay, Fireball?" he asked.

"Yes," Rei said shortly. She wrapped her arms around herself, wore her dark hair like a cloak to blend in with the night. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"Can you not?"

Jakob shrugged, unruffled. Rei hated that about him—there was too much politician in it for her to be vaguely okay with the gesture. She probably had a complex. They swung down into the grunge and the humid heat of the subway without really clearing it with each other. It was easier not to talk, to be honest.

The whistling of the trains as they went by was the only sound for a long, long time. It was hot and sticky and there were a million other people on the platform.

Rei counted down the seconds until she was home like a prayer.

"Hey, Rei, chill out," Jakob said. His voice was close at her ear. His arm settled over her shoulders, and though Rei knew she ought to shake him off before it gave him ideas, she couldn't help the way she slumped into him.

"You never call me that."

"What?"

"My _name_, moron," she said. "You never call me _Rei_."

"Fireball suits you better," Jakob scoffed, like it was common knowledge.

Rei tucked herself up against him (just for a little while, she told herself), settled into the crook of his arm as the train doors slid open with a _hiss_. Then she pushed him off, and stalked forwards into air conditioned bliss. Even after they'd sat down side by side on the ugly orange-and-yellow plastic seats, his thigh pressed into hers. It was skin against fabric against fabric against skin.

She didn't cling, and she folded her hands in her lap.

"I don't know why I let them talk me into going tonight," Rei said. She wasn't sure who she was talking to. Maybe she wasn't talking to anyone at all.

"Them?"

"Serena and Mina. It was their idea."

"Why?" he asked her, and he stared so intently that if Rei hadn't an iron grip on her emotions, she would have blushed. She tucked long dark strands of hair behind her ear, searching for the right words.

"You've met Serena, right?" Rei asked carefully.

He nodded, gold curls stark in the ugly fluorescent lights. It slicked off him, rain down through the gutters, and a shiver prickled down her spine. Rei tried again.

"Have you met her sad kitten eyes?"

Jakob actually laughed. "Darien has."

Rei's lips tightened into a thin red slash across her face. "Don't remind me."

"You really don't like him, huh," he said. It wasn't a question.

"It's not his fault," Rei almost smiled. "All of Serena's boyfriends have made me angry."

"Why?"

Rei looked straight ahead. "They kept breaking her heart. And then I had to put her back together, and it was… Serena's made of sunshine, and when she's sad… It's not _right_, okay?"

"I don't think Darien will, Fireball," he said quietly. "He loves her too much."

"I think that's part of the problem," Rei said, then fell silent.

She didn't know which one of them moved first—maybe him, maybe her—but the night had been a joke and they weren't even _friends_ and he was still taking her _home_. Rei tangled her fingers through Jakob's, and it was easy, so easy. There was something fragile growing in her stomach, and when she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, she thought that maybe… maybe…

Maybe things were going to be okay.

They sat like that, hand in hand, until they got off the train.

"You don't need to walk me home," Rei said. She stood a little stiffly; too much alcohol and vulnerability, probably.

"I want to," Jakob said.

Rei had had boys say that to her often in her life: they always wanted to do things for her, brought her roses and free drinks like she _wanted_ them. They wanted to carry her books, be her boyfriend, see if they could surprise a laugh out of her perfect mouth.

When they couldn't, they called her _bitch_ and went away.

Rei had long ago decided she would live on her own, without any support from anyone.

If being friends with Serena and Mina had taught her anything, it was that being alone was better than being hurt and having to live with that forever. As it was, Rei had three hundred days of watching her mother waste away in a hospital stored in her memory. She wasn't about to start revisiting that pain _now_. That hurt would last her for the rest of her life.

She thought of Mina, stumbling through life with too many boys at her fingertips. Serena, who always got too invested in the wrong people. And the way Lita couldn't be in an airport without having a panic attack. And how Amy would look out the window in the winter when the snow had turned to slush around her stupidly-expensive-for-what-they-were boots and curled in on herself like the cold hurt her in her bones.

There was so much hurt in this city.

And so Rei took a deep breath of humid summer air. It was wet down her throat, tasted like the park after rain, green and fresh.

"Okay," she said on the exhale. "Let's walk."

Jakob slung an arm loose around her shoulders. "I said you'd come around," he laughed.

Rei didn't say anything at all.

But she did smile, and that was almost better.

—

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_fin_.

**notes3**: this was _not_ supposed to be this fucking long _what even happened here_


	2. baby what a shiner

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to V.  
**notes**: barfs.

**notes2**: part **II** of the **goddamn rich people** au; chronologically, this happens about six months before _electra goes to war_

**title**: baby what a shiner  
**summary**: Ugh, just kill me already — Minako/Kunzite, Usagi; AU.

—

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It was dark, and it was hot.

Sweat dripped down the back of her spine. The pulse of the bass hit her like a fist to the solar plexus. She swayed into it, the hand over the curve of her hip burning through the thin fabric of her dress. Metal beneath her fingers, sweat-slick.

She moved slow through air thick like mud. The entire world was her playground, and no one should have been surprised.

Mina was a creature of high heels and higher expectations, and not one to disappoint. She was the golden girl, August heat made solid in the perfect tanned lines of her legs, dancing late at night in the dark underbelly of a city that would have eaten girls a little less brave than she.

And so when she left the party—and she did leave the party, because only tools and businessmen with nothing better to do with their time stayed longer than when the sun went down—Mina took the breath in the room with her. Rei was already gone, and the others had fucked off to who knew where.

There was no point in staying.

She was beautiful, and that was what people noticed first. Not her brains or her name (though they all took notice of her name eventually: Anders was a common name, but not so common that high society wasn't aware of the daughter of a supermodel and her acrobat-heir of a husband), but her looks. Her _smile_.

Because the thing was that no one really said _no_, not when she put her mind to it. Not when she was smiling over a solo cup of coffee, tiny shorts and too-big sweater, all golden hair and blue eyes.

The universe loved Mina, really.

Dragged a hand down her face, down her throat; she danced like other people _breathed_. Grown up on the jetset, Mina left her fingerprints and her clothes across the globe for other people to pick up.

The only place she settled was here, in the low dull roar of a club where the music throbbed along her bones. She had no face here, no name, and the strobe light slicked down her hair from the crown of her head to the sway of her hips, all gold on gold. It was lighter here, somehow, real life's inhibitions and responsibilities falling away into the pulse and haze of noise.

(But it was a little lonely. Rei was gone. Amy was always studying. Lita was too good for this shit anyway, and Serena was—well, she was Serena. She was going to find some nice boy and get married and have children, and then Mina would be all alone. What was she going to do without them?)

Lips followed a bead of sweat down her throat.

Mina smiled.

It wasn't a kind thing. It was all teeth sharp like daggers meant to cut out a heart. Only Serena had indulged her tonight, to come dancing. But Serena had disappeared an hour ago into a corner with a dark-haired man that Mina had never met before.

But she wasn't worried.

She wasn't worried at all.

Tongue against her jugular, Mina tipped her head back. It was a line of cool wetness in contrast to the pounding bass beneath her feet. It thrilled up her spine, trembling through her temples, through her fingers; a single long glittering skein of pleasure and this—this Mina knew. This Mina understood.

"Kiss me," she said.

She didn't even know his name but he kissed her like pop rocks exploding underneath her tongue. It was only okay: it was too sharp, too fizzy. Blood rushed to her face but not in a good way, burned acrid on the back of her tongue.

And Mina was always at war with herself for things like this.

"I need a drink," she said into his mouth.

"Don't be gone too long," he said into her throat.

Mina pushed him away, and vowed to never let him touch her again. He could be anyone, anyone at all, but he still wasn't the person she was looking for. She gave people a chance, did Mina—but once chance (one kiss) was all they had, and once they'd wasted that, she disappeared like a ghost in sunlight.

But the bar seemed so far away.

And the doors were right there. But Serena—

Serena was gone, too. Her ridiculous pigtails were gone from the pounding bass. Mina wasn't the only hot mess left in this place, but she was probably the richest.

Everything inside her ached, all the places that could hurt; with the thought that her best friend had gone, Mina felt hollowed-out, scraped clean from the inside out. She felt alone, though her hips still burned from where that stranger had held onto her. He'd tried to keep her in place, just like everyone else. It wasn't a good feeling, and, God, she didn't have time for these people and their petty little games.

And the night called.

On unsteady ankles, Mina Anders left her world behind to find amusement elsewhere.

It wasn't hard, not really. New York was a big, big city.

New York was a big, big city, and the trains ran all the time.

No matter how late—or so late it was early—she was out, Mina could always rely on the subway system to get her (and whoever had caught her golden mayfly attention that night) home.

She had friends who never used the subway—acquaintances, really, she could count on one hand how many people she was really friends with—because they thought it was beneath them. Which, ha, it literally was.

Her heels clicked against the asphalt, lonely but loud, and she swung down the green-painted steps to hop the B uptown. Times' Square was for tourists, and Mina had better things to do. Someone stood outside a church preaching about the Exodus; they did that a lot, these days, with the economic crash and the shady business all over the place.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Mina sang beneath her breath.

Whatever. Witches weren't really her department.

Bitches, though, Mina knew a couple of those.

(Was one, for that matter. There was something about words, Mina knew: if you took a word for yourself and made it yours, no one could hurt you with it anymore. She'd been called a bitch so many times, for so many reasons—because she was pretty, because your boyfriend liked her better, because your daddy never loved you and she called you on it—that eventually, she wore it like armour. A word couldn't hurt you, when it bounced off.)

The air down in the platform was hot and sticky against her skin. Her skirt stuck to the back of her legs, not short enough for the summer heat. Rei might have been able to pull it off, but Mina wasn't Rei. She wasn't that composed.

She was too hungry, to be Rei.

Mina waited for her train, braiding and unbraiding her hair for want of something to do with her hands. There were only a few other people around; a tired-looking woman with dark skin and her hair wrapped up in a colourful scarf hummed to herself several feet away. There was a boy busking (badly), old guitar between his hands and a (terrible) love song between his lips, and he stared at her, Mina thought, just like everyone did. There were a couple of businessmen, too—they both had white hair, though only one of them looked old enough to be her grandfather. The other just looked… resigned, Mina thought. He stared straight ahead, and his eyes were grey as the sky over the ocean just before a storm. They matched his charcoal-coloured suit. He should have looked washed out, all that grey, but he didn't.

And his mouth was soft, so Mina wondered about that instead.

When the train came, she slipped inside before anyone else, and sat down with her head against the window. The man in the charcoal suit sat down across from her.

Mina smiled at him only once, and then she closed her eyes.

—

She woke up to the sound of her phone screeching at her.

"Oh god, who the hell—" Mina moaned, and reached for the offensive thing. "Hello?"

"_Oh, hey, you got home okay_!" Serena's voice came tinny through the speaker. "_I was worried, because I couldn't find you, but Darien's friend said he thought he saw a really blonde girl staggering out at like, two AM_—"

Her friend blabbered happily, and Mina sank back down into her pillows. She let the sound of Serena's voice wash over her, let it calm her pounding heart down. "Well, I guess _a really blonde girl_ kinda does describe me, somehow."

"_Well, yeah! He said she sorta looked like me, so I figured… but you're alright? Nothing broken?_"

"No, Ren," Mina said. "Nothing broken. Nothing hurt."

(And wasn't that the truth.)

"_Good_," Serena said. Mina could hear the smile in her voice. "_So, um, I know last night was kind of_—"

"A total and complete failure of everything ever," Mina supplied.

"—_yeah, that. So do you think that, I don't know, we could try it again? I really want you to like him, Mina, Darien's—he's different, okay? He's just different_."

"That's what you said about Seiya, and look how that turned out," Mina said. It wasn't that she didn't trust Serena's judgement. It was just that when it came to significant others, Serena's judgement was _severely impaired_.

"_Seiya was… Seiya was different in a different way_."

"Because that makes sense."

"_Mina_!" Serena bristled on the other end of the line like an angry cat (and shit, Mina had forgotten to feed Artemis again, he'd probably pissed all over the cushions in revenge. What a dick). "_It makes sense to me! Seiya was… angry. And he was looking for something that I couldn't give him._"

"Yeah, Kaley."

Serena's voice went very soft. "_He'd loved her for a really long time, Mina. You know that. And Darien… Mina, he lights me up inside_."

At that, Mina sat up. Serena wasn't very often poetic, but when she was, it meant that there was something Very Clearly Up. She pressed a hand to her forehead to ward away the oncoming headache.

"What does that mean?" Mina asked, soft.

"_It means I want you to approve of him. It's important._"

At that, Mina sighed. "So what do you want me to do?"

"_Come to brunch with us_."

"When and where?"

"_Harrods. And. Um. Right now?_"

"Oh my god, I'm going to kill you for this."

"_I love you, I love you, I love you!_" Serena squealed over the phone. Mina could practically see her bouncing up and down, too excited to deal with the world at large. She was such a handful. Mina loved her desperately.

"I know, I know, I know," Mina giggled. "Give me half an hour, I need to shower."

"_You are the bestest friend ever_," Serena said seriously. "_Even better than Lita when she bakes cookies. I am going to buy you like fifty pairs of shoes_."

"I'm telling Lita you said that, and she'll never bake you cookies again. Also, I'm totally holding you to that shoe-promise, I hope you know," Mina said.

"_Oh my god, don't tell her, that's just cruel! And yeah, I know. But it's okay, you deserve them_."

"Of course I do, this is me," Mina replied. She tucked her phone into the crook of her neck, shoved the covers of her bed away. "Anything else I should know?"

"_Um, Darien might be bringing a friend?_"

"I swear to god, Serena, if you're trying to set me up again…"

"_No, no, it's nothing like that! It was was—okay, no. The last time I tried that with Amy it ended so, so bad, I had to promise I'd never ever do it again to anyone! Not even you!_"

"And you're actually sticking to that?"

"_You have no _faith_, Mina-poo_," Serena sighed theatrically. "_None! What kind of friend has no faith in their really gorgeous friend's boyfriend's friends?_"

"I can't believe I understood that sentence. And the kind that knows exactly what goes on in that fluffy pink head of yours," Mina replied, humourlessly. Her loofa was hiding on her again—maybe Artemis had stolen it to play with, that was quite possible, he was enough of a little shit for it—and where the hell were her heels?

"_Hey, rude—!_" Serena gasped. "_Be nice, you sound like Rei!_"

"Who's being rude _now_, huh?"

"_I am hanging up on you, poopy. Be at Harrods, or face my wrath!_"

"I love you, but your wrath is like a rabbit, Ren. It's just not scary at all—"

"_I'M HANGING UP NOW!_"

The dial tone in Mina's ear made her laugh until she cried.

—

She wore orange, because orange was obnoxious. It was loud and flirty and dangerous; Mina liked to think that it suited her, but probably it just made her look like she was an escaped convict.

Still, she tied a red bow in her hair, and she went to face the world.

Let it be known that there was very little in the world that phased Mina Anders.

(Not even brunch dates with her best friend's new boyfriend. Those just made her want to throttle teenagers who wore ugly shoes, but whatever, she would deal. Mina wasn't a child. She could survive one brunch date.)

She walked into Harrods precisely thirteen minutes after she said she'd be there.

Serena already had food in her mouth. When she caught sight of Mina in her bright tangerine dress, she waved frantically, nearly spat everywhere, and only managed to stop because of the face that Serena considered all wasted food sacrilege.

Mina smiled. Thank God some things never changed.

"Classy, Ren," Mina said as she sat down. "Hi, you must be Darien."

The man sat in front of her looked like he'd taken the textbook definition of Tall, Dark, and Handsome and rubbed his face in it until it stuck. He coloured a little, but Mina thought it had more to do with the fact that Serena was miming gagging at their waiter's back than anything else.

He hadn't even looked at her yet, and something dark eased around Mina's heart.

"Yeah," he said, and finally looked at her to take her proffered hand. "You're—Mina, right? Sorry, I'm terrible with names, uh—"

"It's Mina, yes," Mina said. Her smile grew a little. He was humble and a bit of a goofball, she could see that already. Perhaps he'd be decent, then—she just needed to find out his last name so she could find all sorts of dirty secrets about him to hang over his head in case he ever caused Serena even a modicum of pain. "So what do you do?"

He coloured again, looked down. "Oh, I'm—"

"He's going to be a _doctor_, Mina!" Serena bounced into the conversation just like the fluff-brained rabbit she was. "Working with children, you know? It's so _neat_!"

"Is that true?" Mina asked.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "I like kids, they're a lot of fun."

"Why did you pick—" Mina started.

But Serena cut her off, tugging at Darien's sleeve. "Darien, your friend—isn't that him? In the suit?"

Mina whipped her head up. Darien might have been less than suitable (but ugh, whatever, no one in this town was fucking _suitable_), and he might have needed some major help in the dressing department, but if he had friends who wore suits, there may have been hope for him yet. Hope was all that Mina had, most days, so it was better than nothing.

"Oh, shit, yeah, hold on—Kane, over here!"

He moved through the tables a little hunched, as though his bulk was not meant for so small a place. He wore a dark suit, had very light hair—

Mina blinked. She knew that face. And so she stood, and smiled at him. "So we meet again. Nice to put a name to the face. Kane, right?"

He stared at her. "You were the girl on the train."

"Girls take trains," Mina said. "How else are we supposed to get around?"

Darien shot some very rapid glances between them. "Do you two… know each other?"

Mina flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Only in passing."

"She was drunk," Kane said.

Mina watched the colour drain out of Serena's face. She set her smile hard, sharp enough to cut flesh. He really had no idea what he was getting into here, with her—and Mina wasn't about to give him the benefit of a doubt.

"I don't see how smiling at you on the train constitutes _drunk_," she said delicately. "People do smile, it's a normal thing that people with faces do, you know. Or do you not do that on your planet?"

Serena choked on a roll.

Mina paid her absolutely no mind.

Because he was watching her with something akin to respect, and it had been a very long time since someone had looked at her with that in their eyes. Hunger, yes, and lust: those were things that Mina could spot in people's gazes a million miles away. But respect was something different, and when Kane inclined his head just a fraction, she was honestly delighted.

She hadn't put up with so much bullshit in high school to lose on a playing field as clearly unimportant as this.

But apparently Darien hadn't yet learned of Serena's immovable constitution—he rushed over to her side, had a hand on her shoulder and looked to be about to try something dangerous like the Heimlich maneuver or something equally heinous.

"Ugh, just kill me already," Mina said, and went to shove him off. "Back off, okay? Just give her a second, she'll be fine. Nothing kills Ren, Darien, believe me. We've tried."

Serena wheezed for another minute, before she managed to swallow the bit of roll and beam brightly at the three of them like nothing was wrong at all.

"Hi!" she sang. "I'm Serena! Sit down, we haven't ordered yet—"

Serena's chatter filled the cracks between the four of them like nothing was wrong at all. Mina's chest squeezed when she caught the way that Darien was looking at her friend; he was looking at her like he'd just seen the sun for the first time.

Mina thought she was going to be violently ill. Hopefully all over Darien's shiny patent leather shoes, ugh, who even _wore_ patent leather anymore? They were so 2007. Mina picked at her eggs Benedict, and tried to find fewer things to dislike about him.

He was just such a _tool_.

(She was calling swamp voodoo on this shitshow _right now_.)

Kane fingers curled around the inside of her wrist, to stop her tapping on her plate with the tines of her fork. The sound was grating, but she didn't care.

Mina pulled her hand away. She smiled when she spoke, voice low. "Don't ever touch me without my permission again, do you understand me?"

"I—"

"No," Mina said. She spoke into his ear, too low for Serena or Darien to hear—or care, given that they were feeding each other strawberries. Gross. "You're probably used to girls falling all over themselves to talk to you, aren't you? Here's a piece of advice. I'm not like that."

"I thought you might not be," he replied, voice set just as low as her own was. "What do you want?"

"Could you make your friend disappear forever?"

"I don't think so, no. Darien is… pigheaded."

"Pity, that. But since that's the case, we have nothing to talk about," Mina said.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and Mina thought she saw a shift behind the blank canvas of his face. But just as quickly as she saw it appear, it withered into nothing, and was gone.

She drew a deep, fortifying breath, and said "Frankly? If you can't make him leave, you're of no use to me."

"Do you hate him that much?"

"It's not so much him as it would be _anyone_."

"Is she that important?"

"She's more important than _anything_," Mina said fiercely. "She can't—look, it doesn't matter. If you can't make him leave, I'll do it myself."

"You're on your own, miss," he said quietly.

Mina smiled. It was bleak, unkind, but it did nothing to mar the beauty of her face. "That's what you think. But just in case you change your mind, here. Call me."

She scribbled her number down in crimson lipliner on her napkin.

"Serena, we should probably get going. I believe you owe me fifty pairs of shoes?"

"Aw, Mina, _now_?" Serena whined. She pouted up at her, eyes water-blue and wide, lip stuck out. She looked like a kicked kitten, but Mina had long become immune to Serena's ridiculous faces.

"Yes, _now_. There is shopping to do! I have money to spend, things to buy!" Mina commanded. "And, God, would you quit that? I've known you since you were five years old, that face doesn't work on me anymore."

"But it used to work, right? Oh—Darien, I'll call you later, okay? Just tell them to put it on my tab, I'll take care of it!"

Without further ado, Mina dragged her flailing best friend away. She didn't look back to see whether or not Kane pocketed the number.

She told herself she didn't really care, either way.

It wasn't a lie.

It was probably better that he didn't, anyway.

—

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_fin_.


	3. here in this town with no trees

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
**dedication**: to my Jupiter, who has found her Nephy-poo.  
**notes**: this was gonna be heart-breaking, but then something good happened.  
**notes2**: part **III** of the **goddamn rich people** au.

**title**: (no escape for us) here in this town with no trees  
**summary**: People don't write songs about girls like me. — Makoto/Nephrite; AU.

—

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She picked him up at two-forty-nine in the morning, wearing nothing but a grey shirt and tiny pink shorts.

It wasn't even a _nice_ shirt—it was old and washed near colourless, worn through at the elbows, sliced off at the top where she took scissors to it. That was just the kind of person that she was: she'd always hated having things tight around her throat, and this was no different. The neckline of the shirt hung just a little too low, and her collarbones left gaunt shadows across her skin. It was something to sleep in, something worn forgiving with age and long exposure to a dryer. And her hair was down tonight, loose auburn curls around her face; she looked… soft, somehow. Not like herself.

His heart pounded in his throat.

"You don't even have underwear on, do you," he sighed aloud.

"Congratulations," she said, rolled her eyes. "You win the prize for most inappropriate comment _ever_! Out of line, Nate."

"That doesn't answer the question, Lita."

"You say that like you expect an answer," she said. Her eyes never left the road ahead, though they weren't moving as of yet. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel, two sets of four perfect porcelain columns all in lovely perfect lines. She was a silent thing under the grimy orange streetlamp light.

"Shouldn't I?"

Lita expelled a sigh, long, from deep in her chest. She sounded tired. "You're not getting an answer, Nate, it's like three AM. I have _class_ in the morning."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You should be," Lita replied, and gunned the engine. "One of these days I'm not going to come, you know?"

"Aww, Leets, don't be like that,"

"Don't call me that," Lita breathed out thickly through her nose, incensed. She cursed Amy in the back of her mind—cursed her in three different languages, all of which Lita had learned only so that she could swear in them fluently at any point she so chose—and tried not to let him get under her skin.

_Think of class_, she told herself. _Think of the business plan, think of the bakery, think of—anything, anything at all. Just not this. Anything but this_.

The streetlamps flashed smeary and indistinct overhead, Lita's foot heavy on the gas pedal. Nate's legs were locked up awkwardly to his chest because he was too tall for her shiny red two-person sports car. He could have moved the seat back, if only for some breathing room.

But he didn't.

Lita didn't know why that mattered, only that it did.

Nate had been Amy's friend, first. Lita hadn't known how they'd met (she had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with Amy's med school friends and those dudes were _so_ bad news except for maybe Darien. But Amy seemed to hold her own among them, so Lita wasn't about to intervene on her friend's behalf), and really, she didn't want to know.

But he'd hung around a lot. And though Lita was not a naturally suspicious person, something about him just sent her hackles up. He was—too tall, maybe, too even-tempered for someone who had shoulders that size. He made her feel small.

She didn't even want to like him, but Nate was an actual puppy-dog, and resisting him was… hard, to put it lightly. Basically impossible, actually.

That had been a year ago.

Now he came over to talk about politics and argue about how best to cook okra. Somewhere along the line, they'd almost become the kind of close that Lita reserved solely for her very closest friends, the girls she'd grown up with. Not quite there, because regardless, Amy and the others would always be closest to her heart.

But Nate… Nate came close.

"Thank you," he said, very quietly.

Lita shook her head just a little, curls getting caught in her lip chap as she moved. "Don't—worry about it. It's not a big deal."

"It is, Lita. You were the one who said you had class."

"I do, but. God. Can't you let it go, Nate?"

He chuckled bitterly low in his throat. "I wish."

If Lita hadn't been driving, she might have reached across the console to punch him out. She could do it, too, and make it hurt; when Serena's mother had taken her in after the accident, she'd allowed Lita to continue with her Judo lessons. Lita had never stopped, and she could pack a punch with the best of them. She was tall, and she was strong, and no one took her lightly anymore.

Nate so knew it, too. It was probably why he spent so much time goading her, because she could totally take him out if he pushed it too far.

(Sometimes, Lita thought he was a bit of masochist. Sometimes, she thought it wasn't just a _bit_.)

Restraint ran strong in her family, though, and gentleness.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself," she said.

"Neither can you. I swear to god, Lita, don't you even care what they say about you?" Nate bit off the curse she could see forming between his teeth.

"Not particularly," Lita shrugged. "What's the news now? Am I getting married to some Norwegian prince again? Are Serena and Mina breaking hearts on Wall Street? Is Rei snubbing her father in public?"

"No," he said.

"God, Amy's lucky," Lita sighed. "She stays out of the society pages."

"That's because she doesn't fuck around," Nate said.

"No, she really doesn't," Lita replied, a satisfied little twist to her mouth. "She's got her head on straight. It's the rest of us that need help. So what happened?"

"They caught you picking me up."

"If they're actually going the whole fraternizing-with-those-beneath-my-station again, I'm gonna projectile vomit all over the place."

Nate just grimaced.

"Oh god, that's exactly what they're saying, isn't it," Lita said, and it wasn't a question.

"It might be."

"Ew, don't they have anything better to do?"

"Apparently not," Nate grumbled. He rolled the window down, and the city's sleepy sounds filtered in: the screech of tires from far away; the hum of air conditioners buzzing up lackluster against the vibrancy of a trillion lights; it was the murmur of sixteen million voices, sixteen million heartbeats all pounding away at once. He opened his mouth, but Lita already knew where that was going, and she didn't want to deal with it tonight.

"Don't apologize, Nate. It's not your fault."

"It kind of is."

"Oh my god, whatever, so what if it is! What does it even matter? I want to own a bakery, I'm pretty much normal anyway."

"I don't think you even know what normal _means_, Leets."

"You are so annoying," Lita said. It came out snorted, though, like she didn't really mean it. "Like _any_ of us know what _normal_ means."

"Darien does."

"Fuck that guy," Lita said easily, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. "He's so bad at everything, I don't even know how he's still alive."

"Your best friend loves him," Nate pointed out. Just like always.

"Ugh, don't remind me," she laughed, but it was simple and it was okay because she didn't meant it at all.

Lita liked Darien. Lita liked Darien more than anyone else she knew, probably, except for maybe Serena herself (and that was saying something, because Serena and Darien were going to get _married_). Because there was a certain ugly bond between orphans; no matter where they sat on the economic food chain, they all knew exactly what it felt like to be wrung out and left for the emotional buzzards. There was always a hollowness that no amount of glittering lights and gold cards could chase away.

Money didn't bring people back from the dead, so what was the point?

Lita had learned that when she was ten years old, and hadn't stopped learning it since. Money could buy everything, but not happiness.

(Not safe airplanes, either, apparently, but that was a whole different enchilada. There were still some things she still couldn't talk about, and that was only one of many.)

They drove in silence for a long time, after that. Lita knew the way to his apartment almost as well as she knew her own name; nights like this happened too often for both of their tastes, and sometimes he made her _ache_ inside.

Lita wanted and wanted and _wanted_.

"Hey, we're here," she said, shook his shoulder gently. He was absorbed in the night sky again. "Nate? You in there?"

"Yeah," he said, but that was all. He made no move to get out of her car, just sat there like he was waiting for the world to end, and he was okay with it because they were together. Lita reminded herself that she needed to stop thinking about things like this, because it was probably going to be the death of her sanity one day.

It was a long time later that he blew out his breath, and looked her straight in the eyes. "Why do they hate him?"

There was only one person he could be referring to. Lita's shoulders slumped. "Do you want a list, or…?"

"Are you shitting me?"

"I can give you three reasons off the top of my head," she said, dead serious.

"Go on, then."

"Rei hates him because she's in love with Serena. Mina hates him because Mina hates all of Serena's boyfriends on principle. Amy hates him because he keeps beating her test scores in neuro-chem. Should I keep going?" Lita ticked the reasons off on her fingers. There were more, too, hundreds and hundreds of reasons that her friends couldn't stand the sight of one Darien Shields.

This felt like a betrayal, too, but she didn't know where that kind of betrayal began and ended, anymore. And really, the only person she was betraying was herself. There was probably something poetic in that, but Lita didn't really do poetry. Poetry took too much brain power.

Besides, pastry was more her line of work.

"Rei's in love with Serena?"

Lita reached over to flick at him. "Do you know anyone who _isn't_ in love with Serena?"

"I'm not," he said, very quietly.

"You don't count," Lita said, because he really didn't. He really didn't count at all. "Serena's—she's got horrible taste in men, normally. Darien's kind of an anomaly, you know? They just worry."

"You don't?"

"Of course I do. But I know Serena. And I know Darien. And I know that they won't hurt each other. Not intentionally, anyway."

Nate tucked wayward curls behind her ear. "You make them sound like a love song."

"Have you seen them together recently? They kind of _are_ a love song. It's funny, Mina normally eats that shit right up," Lita said, fond exasperation in her voice. "Darien pisses her off, I guess."

"…Do you have a love song, Leets?"

"What?" she blinked at him.

"A love song. Person. Thing," Nate said, stumbling over the words like he'd been trying to get them out all night.

"Okay, one, you sound like a three-year-old. Two, don't call me that, how many times do I have to tell you, and three…" Lita paused. The shrug and the smile came just a little bit too late for the pair of them to be real: there was pain behind her eyes, well-hid but very, very real. "People don't write love songs about girls like me."

He stared at her, unblinking.

"I dunno if it's crossed your mind, but I'm not that kind of girl, Nate. I don't, I'm not—that's not me."

"Why not?"

"The same reason that I don't give a crap about what people say about me? It's not something I care about," she said. "I just wanna buy cute shit for my apartment, bake cookies whenever I feel like it, and be happy."

Nate's face was intent in the darkness. Lita shrank back, instinctively. The last time someone had looked at her like that, they'd kissed her and then proceeded to stomp all over her heart without so much as a backwards glance.

Lita was a careful girl, because there was only so much heartbreak she could take.

And not from Nate.

Never from Nate.

(He had too much of her as it was, and if he wanted to snap her in two, it wouldn't be that hard. But still, Lita _wanted_ so much, so much, _so much_.)

"You shouldn't settle, Leets."

"I don't _settle_, Nate. Just—whatever, can I go home now? It's like almost four," she said.

(She was not diverting, she was not diverting, she was not, was not, _was not diverting_.)

He didn't push it. He just ran a hand through his hair—screw him, he had nicer hair than she did, how was that even _fair_—and looked to be about to unbuckle his seatbelt. That lasted for all of thirty seconds, before he wrapped a hand around the curve of her shoulder.

"Jesus, Leets, what am I even going to do with you?" he asked. Somehow, Lita didn't really think he wanted an answer. She had one for him anyway, because even though Amy was the smart one, Lita was the one with the smart _mouth_.

"Nothing," she grinned. "You're gonna get out of my car, so I can go home to bed!"

"You're insane."

"Isn't it _awesome_?"

"No," he said. "Lita—"

"Wha—?"

"_Oh_," she made a soft sound at the back of her throat as his mouth eased over hers; it was soft, so hesitant Lita thought she might cry. He cradled her head like she was a precious breakable thing in his hands.

Her brain short-circuited.

They kissed for minutes, or hours, or several moonlit days. Lita lost track of time, but when he finally pulled away, her breathing came ragged (but so did his, and somehow that eased the churning inside her gut).

He pressed his forehead to hers, and stared her in the eyes. She'd never noticed the flecks of gold in his deep brown gaze. For a long time, they just looked at each other. It was the kind of looking you only did once in a lifetime, when you'd just found out something strange and new and different and _good_.

"I love you," Nate said all in a rush. "I should have said it a long time ago."

"If you say something cheesy like _before I met you_, I'm going to kick you so hard, Nate," Lita managed. Her throat didn't work right, too light-headed to get her brain in order.

He laughed, and it shook her whole frame.

When had she climbed into his lap? The dashboard dug into her back, and Lita couldn't even dredge up the energy to care about the possible bruising. Nate's hands on her face dwarfed her in a way no one else ever had. Lita felt safer, right there in her bright little sports car in the middle of the night in one of the shittiest neighbourhoods she'd ever had the misfortune of driving through, than she'd felt in a long, long time.

"I don't know how to do this," she admitted, ducking her head down.

"Neither do I," he said. "We can go slow?"

Lita looked up at him, eyes glinting. "Slow?"

"Yeah, slow. If you want."

"I think we can do slow," she murmured, and then bent to ghost her lips across his cheek. "So am I invited upstairs, or what?"

"God, yes," he said fervently, and, without further ado, lifted her out of the car. Lita burst into giggles, arms wrapped around his neck. Her car beeped as she locked it, and she let him carry her up the stairs and into the building.

The door closed behind them, clicking softly as it locked.

—

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_fin_.


End file.
